Matt Guthmiller, the 19-year-old MIT student from Aberdeen, South Dakota, has just set his 6-seat, single engine, Beechcraft Bonanza 36 piston, down on Santa Maria Island, Via do Porto, Azores, after the 8-hour and 14 minute flight from St. John's Newfoundland, Canada, on his 42- day solo flight around the world. His aim is to set a new record for the youngest person ever to circumnavigate the globe and holds his commercial pilots license.. The current holder was 21 years old when he captured the record.
Matt has his complete itinerary posted on his facebook account. Since I do not do facebook, you can check it out on your own. Most of the circumnavigate routes are pretty much the same and being an avid aviation geek, I don't want to know his route until he flies it. That's half the fun of following his trip.
Frankly, an 8 hour flight over the Atlantic in a Beechcraft Bonanza solo would be enough to get a big "NO" from me. I've flown in such an aircraft. The ceiling for a craft like that is 11,500 feet. Matt was doing most of the flight at 9,000 feet but did hit the max for a couple of hours of the flight. He had a good tail wind and was right on time landing. Flying over great expanses of water is not my thing. I've meet several who have done so and it's not their favorite part of flying either. Never-the-less, Matt made it to the Azores and gets a big congratulations in his early legs of his trip.
Thus far:
El Cajon, Ca to Aberdeen, S.D. [5-31-14] 9hr.8 min
Aberdeen, to Teterboro, NJ [6-2-14] 6hr.34 min
Teterboro, NJ to St. John's, Newfoundland, CA [6-4-14] 6hr.28 min
St. John's, Newfoundland, CA to Santa Maria Island, Vila do Porto, Azores [6-6-14] 8hr. 14 min
Credit photo from Matt's FlightAware post on FlightAware.com
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| Matt Guthmiller enroute around the world |
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| Photo Courtesy of FlightAware.com |
